Cooking Column by Sybil Pratt

For the gourmets and novices, everyday toilers and weekend super-chefs on your holiday hit list, cookbooks are the answer to the perennially perplexing present problem.If you or your giftee bake or have baking aspirations, Bouchon Bakery is an absolute must. Written by the extraordinary Thomas Keller, perhaps America’s most important chef, and Sebastien Rouxel, executive pastry chef for...

Cooking Column by Sybril Pratt

Ferran AdriNext, we'll head to Per Se in New York or The French Laundry in the Napa Valley, where the revered Thomas Keller's new heating methods are showcased and now revealed in his new book, Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide. It's a gorgeous, large - format, color photo - filled introduction to what Harold McGee calls "a lasting contribution to fine cooking, a technique that...

Cooking Column by Sybil Pratt

Cookbooks truly are the gifts that keep on giving and this year's holiday array is sensational. If big and beautiful is what you're after, Bouchon, Thomas Keller's sumptuous homage to the best of French bistro cooking, is the perfect choice. Though renowned as the creator of the fabulous, innovative dishes served at his famed French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley, Keller's...

Cooking Column by Sybil Pratt

Cookbooks by renowned chefs make fabulous presents and, in this season of giving and getting, a wonderful way to solve your gift list quandaries.Nigella LawsonThe lovely Nigella Lawson, though a self-described happy heathen, loves the social festivities of Christmas and revels in their exuberance and excess. She understands the joys and stresses of holiday entertaining and can help anyone get...

Cooking Column by Sybil Pratt

Home is where the heart is, and home cooking is at the heart of the American home. To celebrate our rich and diverse culinary heritage, Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison have put together over 300 recipes in American Home Cooking. To the Jamisons, home cooking suggests simple, hearty, seasonal fare that can be made without an excess of energy, expense, and time. The question of what is...